Dajana is a teaching assistant and PhD student at the Department of Geography, Tourism and Hotel Management at the Faculty of Sciences in Novi Sad, Serbia. She is passionate about preserving the night sky and “bringing back the stars to our kids!”. Hear about her creativity in teaching about the night sky using animals, astro hikes, jazz and shared gratitude. You’ll be inspired.

Ryan Andreasen is the founder of Night Sky Science (https://nightskyscience.com/). Astrophotography and Night Sky Preservation is Ryan’s main mission along with getting folks to look up at night. In this episode you’ll hear about the wonder of “touching” the Orion Nebula and about how the night sky can induce powerful emotions. When advocating for dark skies, avoiding words like “dark” or “pollution” can help bureaucrats accept the message. You’ll even hear Michael read some T.S. Elliot. This is a good one.

Mark Clipsham - Architect, builder, consultant, master planner. While battling through his allergies, Mark has a thing or two to say about the growth economy, the constant drive for profit and what drives him nuts about the current state of lighting. Mark offers some ideas on sustaining the environment and bringing back the dark skies.

Deborah Burnett, ASID, AASM, is an internationally recognized registered design professional, Subject Matter Expert (SME) in the field of Light + Health, and member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Deborah is going to let you in on some fascinating facts about the “spring surge,” proper lighting in horse stalls, the moon’s importance in photosynthesis, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, and how the industry selling lighting for your circadian rhythms has become a racket.

Check out Frank’s Night Sky Resource Center (www.nightskyresourcecenter.org) for some awesome astrophotography. Frank advocates seeing the night sky as a resource just like water and air. He tells us about his personal sense of “awe” in seeing the night sky and how you too can lose your self awareness in experiencing the sublime. It’s better than Ayahuasca tea!

Sponsored by Keystone www.keystonetech.com

https://youtu.be/Adx11FQQ2ek

Jim is one of the world’s top authorities on lighting design and applied illuminating engineering. He invented the BUG system that directly affects dark skies. Jim tells us how many birds are killed by the Twin Towers light columns and how vertical light is better than horizontal light. Listen to what happened when Jim joined the board of IES, or when WELL inspectors asked him to close the blinds, or what happened when a cheap metal halide bulb exploded. Don’t mess around with Jim!

If you have crappy sleep or like wearing sunglasses you should probably listen to this. Dr. Rosenthal talks about sleep apnea and electric blue light, hormones and electric blue light, melatonin, proteins, cancer and well, electric blue light...you see where we’re going with this. You need to give this one a listen!

Astrophysicist Alejandro Sánchez de Miguel has been involved in light pollution issues since the mid-1990s and has contributed to over 100 articles, many related to light pollution. He is the leader of “Cities at Night,” a citizen-supported project coordinated with NASA and other space agencies that use ISS night imagery to raise light pollution awareness.

Alejandro discusses his personal experiences with light pollution, and his analysis of pictures of cities at night taken from the International Space Station. These pictures led to a discussion on crime statistics and its relation to electric outdoor light at night. European cities with significantly varying amounts of outdoor light at night had no noticeable difference in levels of violent crime. While this observation is anecdotal, it leads to the conclusion that more study is needed to challenge, not confirm, the standard assumption that more electric light means less violence and crime. It was further postulated that the reverse may be true.

Harun Mehmedinovic is an astrophotographer, speaker, documentary filmmaker and dark sky advocate. He finds his deepest connections to nature while looking up at night and is doing his best to spread the word and save it for everyone.

In our conversation we discussed his status as a ‘hack’ compared with night-time photographers from the scientific community, the pale imitation of daytime we’re creating in our cities, the value of travel, how his work does seem to unify everything, his ideas about working with police and security experts, and plus fun fact about fireflies.

Find more from Harun at his website

Sponsored by https://www.RabLighting.com/darksky

Ruskin Hartley, Executive Director of the International Dark Sky Association joins us to discuss his work and experiences in the association.

Right now the IDA is working to grow beyond their roots in amateur astronomers in several directors. The group is forging partnerships with other bodies with an interest in lighting to further their goals, looking at the input of ecologists and medical experts, broadening the ethnic and gender diversity within the organisation, working with designers to understand how to light outside with quality and responsibility in mind, and reaching out to regulators to keep the sky dark and the parts of the ground lit appropriately. 

Beyond the organization he talks about how we have the tools at hand to improve light at night through controls, teaching everyone about what they're missing in a post-LED boom world and his own personal encounters with the value of a night sky.

Sponsored by: http://www.rablighting.com/darksky